Boucher on C-SPAN

IIA Honorary Chairman Rick Boucher recently sat down with fellow former Representative Jack Fields on C-SPAN’s The Communicators to talk about the 1996 Telecommunications Act (which both congressman were instrumental in crafting) and how to update for our current technological reality. You can watch the interview here.

The nation stands on the cusp of a massive mobile internet revolution. Far from hyperbole, the coming transition to fifth-generation (5G) wireless will bring mobile data speeds up to 100 times faster than today’s 4G technology.

Although copper wires have been a feature of the telephone system since Alexander Graham Bell first called Watson, it’s time for them to go away. Fiber is simply faster and a better, more flexible technology.

One simply cannot expect carriers to invest tens of billions of dollars in broadband deployments when they don’t know which regulatory aspects of Title II are going to be implemented by the FCC from time to time.

Without Congressional intervention, net neutrality policy will continue in an endless back-and-forth. Every party change at the White House will produce an FCC that shifts net neutrality rules to its favored terms.

Just as in 1974, when a window existed for bipartisan approval of a sweeping healthcare reform, today’s Congress has an equally promising opportunity to pass legislation putting the net neutrality debate to rest.